1. Field of the Invention
This application claims priority from Korean Patent Application No. 10-2006-0013733 filed Feb. 13, 2006, incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
The invention relates to an integral-type heat exchanger, and more particularly, to an integral-type heat exchanger in which two heat exchange portions are integrally formed with each other.
2. Background of the Related Art
In general, vehicles with an internal combustion engine have been widely used and mass-produced by combusting fossil fuel as power source to thereby generate power. However, with regard to the vehicles with internal combustion engine, there were caused problems of harmful exhaust gas produced from the combustion of the fuel and exhaustion of the fossil fuel, and the like, so that nowadays it is a trend that vehicles using substitute energy have been rapidly developed.
Nowadays, vehicles using the solar energy and the battery charged with electric power as power source have been come true. The electric vehicle is constructed to operate by the driving of a motor activated by the electric power of the battery.
However, since the electric vehicle takes much time in charging the battery, and the amount of the electric power to be charged is restricted, a hybrid vehicle using the internal combustion engine and the battery as composite power source has been developed.
The hybrid vehicle is also provided with several heat exchangers for heating and cooling indoors of the vehicle and for cooling the engine.
Meanwhile, since the fluids to be cooled by the heat exchanger are diversified, various types of integral-type heat exchangers have been developed to perform the function of heat exchange of several fluids by integrating several heat exchangers into a sole heat exchanger.
In Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2005-69600 entitled “A compound heat exchanger”, there is disclosed an integral-type heat exchanger applied to the hybrid vehicle, in which a radiator for cooling the heat generated from the engine in the heat exchanger is integrally formed with a heat exchanger for cooling an inverter circuit for driving a motor.
FIG. 1 is a view for showing an integral-type heat exchanger according to conventional art (hereinafter, the complexity of the explanation is prevented by referring only a portion related to the present invention).
As shown in the drawing, the integral-type heat exchanger comprises a plurality of first tubes 1 through which engine cooling water is circulated, a plurality of second tubes 2 through which inverter cooling water is circulated for cooling an electrically-driven motor (not shown) for the driving and an inverter circuit for driving the motor, a header and a tank 3 disposed at both longitudinal ends of the first and second tubes 1, 2 so that they fluidically communicate with each other, a separator 4 for dividing a space of the header and tank 3 into a first space a fluidically communicating with the first tube 1 and a second space b fluidically communicating with the second tube 2, and the like.
Also, a first inlet pipe 5 and a first outlet pipe 6 are disposed at the first space a, and a second inlet pipe 7 and a second outlet pipe 8 are disposed at the second space b.
In the conventional compound heat exchanger as constructed above, the engine cooling water is circulated through the first inlet pipe 5, the first tube 1, the first outlet pipe 6, and the header tank 3 constituting the first space a, and the inverter cooling water is circulated through the second inlet pipe 7, the second tube 2, the second outlet pipe 8, and the header tank 3 constituting the second space b, to thereby perform the cooling of the engine and the driving motor.
However, in the conventional integral-type heat exchanger as described above, there was a problem that heat transfer between the engine cooling water and the inverter cooling water is not effectively blocked in the heat exchange process because the header and tank 3 fluidically communicating with the first tube 1 and the second tube 2 is integrally formed.
In other words, although a dummy tube 9 and the like are disposed at the boundary of the first tube 1 and the second tube 2, the temperature of the cooling water circulating through them is different, since the header and the tank 3 are formed integrally with each other, the heat transfer cannot be effectively intercepted.
Meanwhile, with regard to the conventional integral-type heat exchanger, since the objects of the respective heat exchange fluid is different, the size and standard of the fin or tube, which is an indispensable parts of the heat exchanger, should be differed at most, so that it was difficult to construct two heat exchangers at the same time in view of the manufacturing process, and difficulty was accompanied in administrating the automatic establishments.
Also, when any one of the integral-type heat exchanger is disordered, the entire heat exchanger should be disposed.